This programme provides the ability to reconstruct people's everyday lives, from the first appearance of humans around two million years ago, through the development of farming, the onset of settled life to the development of the old world civilisations; students not only learn how to carry out archaeological fieldwork but also how to reconstruct what people ate, how they made pots and tools and at the other end of the scale, examine bigger issues of social organisation, gender relations and belief systems; year 1 aims to provide a general introduction to archaeological methods and to the archaeology of later prehistoric and early historic Europe along with a survey of world prehistory; this gives a broad knowledge of the subject so that students can specialise in those areas that interest them most in the 2nd and 3rd years and culminates in a dissertation in which they are expected to demonstrate the application of those skills in one or more of those areas; field and/or museum based work is an integral part of the programme, which is often a central component to the dissertation and students are expected to take part in at least 4 weeks of fieldwork, preferably some of it on one of our departmental field projects; another feature is that it permits those in year 3 who wish to receive credit for acquiring more than basic experience in practical archaeological fieldwork to present for assessment a portfolio of their experience.